A couple of days after Grimwood, I'm seated in a local coffee shop. Seth is across from me typing away his beast of a laptop. I brace the warm cup of coffee in between my hands, forcing the heat to sink into my freezing skin before I take a long sip. I ordered it extra hot, so it burns going down. Still, it warms my inside, even if fleetingly.

Behind me, the bell over the door chimes. I glance over my shoulder as Danny comes in. His gaze sweeps the shop until it falls onto us. Onto me. I swallow any and all feelings as I wave him over. I scoot over and offer him the coffee I ordered ahead for him — and Americano with an extra shot of espresso.

"You're late," Seth says without looking up from his screen.

Danny looks at him, surprised. I think he considered sitting next to Seth, but he slips into my side of the booth. His arm rubs against mine, and I suppress a shiver.

"I'm sorry," Danny says. "I had some work to do this morning." He glances at me. Does it have to do with him leaving us? Did he find a new, more fulfilling job already?

Seth lifts his gaze, and it softens, which is a rare sight. He looks tired — more tired than usual. The typical bags under his eyes look heavier, and he has two lines instead of one. "Have either of you heard from Georgia?"

Danny shakes his head, and I glance at my phone. No new messages. "Just the 'I'll be there' text she sent a few hours ago," I tell him.

He lets out an annoyed sigh. Our channel isn't Seth's only gig. He's primarily a graphic designer and he sets up domains as his main income. But since taking on the show — and since its major surge in popularity — he's been getting many offers for other technical jobs. I assume in the editing department. I can't imagine how many side jobs he has taken on lately.

"Look," he starts, "I don't know how much longer I have. Hopefully, she shows up soon or —"

"Or what?" A voice calls out from behind us. I look back as Georgia flaunters in and approaches the table. Her hair bounces over her shoulders and she has a fancy silk scarf around her neck. She smirks at Seth. "You'll fire me?"

"You're late," he reminds her as I say, "Hey, Georgia!"

She ignores him and gives me a broad smile. "Hey, babes." She gestures at Seth to move over in the booth, which he does while rolling his eyes. "So, what did I miss?"

I lean in. "Are you okay?" I ask her.

She shakes her head nonchalantly. "Yeah. I'm great! Why wouldn't I be?"

I blink at her. Since that night, she hasn't talked about what happened. Danny said when he brought her home, she walked into her apartment by herself. She has texted here and there but said nothing about Grimwood. I thought maybe she doesn't want to talk about it, but pretending as if nothing happened sends a creeping feeling up my back.

After a moment of silence passes, Danny clears his throat. He looks to Seth. "Were you able to figure out what happened with the VOD?"

Seth glances at his laptop. "As I said before, the video feed was black. But somehow..." He shakes his head. "I don't know. Somehow the stream was still recording the whole time and it was included in the VOD." He glances at me and then peeks at Georgia, who is still blasé. "That part was included, full video and audio. And it was clipped. A lot.

"Not even an hour after the stream ended," he continues, "it was uploaded onto Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, even Facebook. We were trending on Twitter for a whole day. Also..." He spins his laptop around. "We have two million followers on Twitch."

I clap my hand over my mouth. Danny shakes his head in disbelief. Georgia, however, is grinning from ear-to-ear. "Oh. My. God!" She practically squeals. "We're famous!"

"Okay, good, so you admit it," Seth replies lowly.

Her brows furrow as she turns to face him. "Admit what?"

"That you staged the whole thing."

Georgia is silent for a solid minute before she bursts into laughter. "Wait. Wait!" She continues laughing until she clutches her side. "This is too good! You think I did that?" She points to herself and then at his computer. "Me? Georgia Quinn?"

"Unless it was him," Seth points at Danny before looking back at Georgia, "it has to have been you."

She raises a brow. "And why not Claire? No offense," she says to me.

"Claire doesn't believe any more than I do," he says. He sighs after a beat. "Look, I'm not mad. I don't care if you set it up — we do it every time — but why go rogue? We were all unprepared."

Georgia crosses her arms over her chest. "I didn't set anything up. Like, how would I go about that all by myself?"

When Seth looks at Danny, Danny shakes his head. "Don't look at me. I had nothing to do with it."

For a while, no one says anything. Seth doesn't accuse me either. I look between all of them, wondering what they could be thinking. No one confessed to staging it, leaving no one to take the blame. But Seth and I know someone must have done something.

I glance at Georgia again, and her gaze is on the table. Her eyes are glassy and her mouth firmly shut. The back of my neck tingles when I picture that look on her face that night.

"Georgia?" I call out gently, and her eyes snap onto mine.

She shakes her head, the act fading away. "Something's wrong," she says quietly. "I felt it at the manor, and I feel it now." She looks away. "I haven't slept. I feel like something is behind me. Watching me."

I meet Seth's eyes. He isn't convinced. "Okay? What are you trying to say? That whatever that was... it was what? A real ghost?"

Georgia opens her mouth but pauses. She reads his face for a hot second and then closes her mouth. "Like you'd believe me anything," she says shortly.

He laughs dryly. "Yeah! I call bullshit." He looks at me. "Claire feels the same too."

I open my mouth in surprise as Georgia looks at me intensely. I can feel Danny's gaze on my face too. I'm cornered, but I can't lie my way out. I suck in a breath to prepare myself and I blurt, "Ghosts aren't real." Georgia scoffs, and across the table Seth thanks me. I turn my head and meet Danny's eyes.

I don't know why I hoped he'd be on my side, but I'm nonetheless surprised when he shakes his head. He nods at Georgia. "I feel it too. These...strange things have been happening ever since."

"Seriously?" Seth mutters. He looks to me for help, but I shrug. He resigns to shaking his head. "Look, I went over ALL the raw footage from that night. It's all gone."

"Gone?" My voice cracks. "Gone how?"

"It's pure static." He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. "All of the equipment we used is fried. All that's left is the VOD and the clips that have been circulating."

Danny leans forward. "The equipment?" He asks, and Seth nods. "Holy shit. All of it? The cams, the computers?"

"Everything," Seth repeats with heat in his voice.

Georgia slaps the table, and I jump. "I knew it!" She seethes. "You are mad! You were trying to smoke us out!"

He points at her. "So you admit it!"

She clenches her jaw. She looks close to slapping him. "No," she says slowly through her teeth. "I'm not admitting to anything! I'm making a point that you lied. You were going to get mad at us if we admitted to staging it."

He rolls his eyes. "Whatever, Georgia."

"Whatever, Georgia," she mocks in a higher-pitched voice.

I sigh and glance up at the television on the wall above us. My breath catches in my throat. "Excuse me?" I call out to the barista. "Can you turn this up?"

As she increases the volume, Tina May of Good Morning, Madison smiles just as she begins the segment. "This one isn't for the faint of heart! On the live-streaming platform Twitch, a group of ghost hunters goes searching for the paranormal while their viewers watch live! Well, this past Saturday, the trio caught something very interesting on camera."

The cameraman shifts to the other anchor Norman Smith. "This clip could be viewed as disturbing — viewer discretion is advised."

Then, the TV in our local coffee shop plays the clip that Emma showed me the other night. The one where the white figure lunges at Georgia and she goes flying into the wall. Thankfully, the morning show cuts the video before Clip Georgia can start screaming.

"Wow!" Tina May says excitedly when they cut back to her. "That was something! I don't know about you, Norman, but I got goosebumps!"

Norman chuckles. "If you didn't believe in ghosts before, I'm sure you do now!" He grins at the camera, and after a brief pause, he looks to the side. "Susan, what does our Wednesday weather look like?"

I shift my gaze back to the table. Everyone is watching the TV silently. I bite my lip and contemplate whether I should tell them what I saw in my house. I still don't know if I fully believe if it was even real.

Either way, I don't know if I can say it out loud. It would change everything, and I'm not ready for my world to turn over.

Current total word count: 12,908

Quick author note: Creep It Real has been listed as one of the ambassadors picks for round one! Thank you so much to the ambassadors, judges, and all the awesome readers! I hope you're enjoying this spooky story so far!